The Ballad of Fluffy the Deathclaw and His Reluctant Messiah of Doom
by Calumongal
Summary: She named it what?


(A/N: There's still a bit of a wait until the next chapter of WADAS so I thought I would re-post one of my edited fills to the kmeme for those that might like it here but haven't seen it there. This is a Courier Friday story, it features the same courier as WADAS, but it's a pretty good standalone piece, as these events never occur in WADAS and it's far more humor-oriented.)

* * *

_There is another tale told in the Wastes, besides the oft-mentioned 'mole rat noodle incident of Primm' and the 'Cottonwood Cove spring break profligate party'. It is a tale of redemption and many chewed-on Freesiders, a legend almost as requested as that of the very Wasteland Messiah's Roadshow._

_It is the Ballad of Fluffy the Deathclaw._

The Courier should've said no.

"Really," Cass told her later, "you damn well should have."

But Quarry Junction looked interesting, the Courier felt (despite the fact, as Arcade would bring up, EVERY place looked interesting to her), and the chance to fight off a deathclaw was something she'd never tried before.

"There's a reason why you haven't," Arcade explained, or tried to, "it's also why you're still alive."

The Courier known as Friday ignored this, of course. In favor of the million weird interests that she had, apparently dying was now at the top of the list. Even Lily looked slightly hesitant when the Courier told her four companions they would be helping out Sloan, though ED-E presumably found the whole thing fascinating, buzzing around her head and beeping happily. (Actually, Arcade wasn't entirely positive that the eyebot's logic circuits had survived their last encounter with a Legion hit squad, so he figured its opinion really didn't count.)

Now, they were, all _five _of them, stuck atop one of the quarry's rock-crushing conveyors, peering down at an alpha male deathclaw. It wasn't doing much but staring back, crouched on its hind talons as if inquisitive of their stupidity. The Courier pulled her grenade launcher off of her back, considered it, then put it away and unclipped an incendiary grenade from her belt.

"Are you right in the head?" Arcade stopped her hand seconds before she yanked the pin. "All you're going to do is piss it off. You ever seen an angry deathclaw?"

Friday shook her head, giving him one of her stupidly innocent looks.

"Well I haven't either," he said, "and most people who still have all their limbs avoid doing that, from what I've seen."

"Well he can't reach us," the Courier countered, "we just keep shooting until he dies. Lily can just use her assault carbine, it'll work out."

And it did, for all of a minute until everyone discovered, to their horror, that deathclaws were actually pretty good climbers. And problems solvers, for that matter, judging by how fast he was going to solve the problem _they _posed.

Lily eventually took matters onto her own blade and sliced off his head. But that still left the various juveniles, non-breeding adults, and the alpha female…somewhere. The Courier tried to convince Rex that he should go down there and flush them out, but the German Shepherd just looked at her like he couldn't believe she had suggested that, then went and hid behind Arcade. She also petitioned ED-E, who, though formerly enthusiastic about the entire hunt, now seemed reluctant to take the dog's place below.

"Seriously," Friday muttered, "nobody is going to go down there for me? Well, you know what they say-"

The Courier re-positioned her pre-war bonnet and leapt onto the scaffolding below before charging out of sight with a war-cry of 'UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS'.

Arcade watched her go with a mixture of denial and downright confusion.

"Think she'll be back?" he said, looking up at Lily.

The nightkin shook her head, shoulders slumping.

"Yeah, don't think so either."

They waited for a good five minutes before the sound of deathclaws screeching in agony rolled across the quarry, accompanied by a very loud _boom_. When the smoke and smell of burnt scales had dissipated into the sky, Friday appeared, the hem of her dress covered in singe marks, her bonnet blown off, a deathclaw egg under her arm.

Her companions reluctantly left the sheltered area at the top of the conveyor and joined her below. She held the large egg out to Lily, who took it sheepishly, and then Friday stuck a finger straight at all of them.

"See how easy that was? You're all a bunch of pansies and I'm ashamed of you right now." She turned her back and started down the quarry's entrance draw. "See if I buy you guys dinner tonight."

But a mere hundred yards from Sloan, the improbable happened, proving that they wouldn't be having lunch either. Lily stopped suddenly and looked down at the egg, feeling something bump against her side from within its dark shell. She hesitated, and Arcade shot her a glance, the Courier continuing on in front, totally oblivious as always.

"Dearie." She looked down at Rex, who was tilting his head at the egg. "There's something wrong with this future omelet. Will you take a look?"

She set the egg down, and Rex licked it once, as if trying to give Lily some sort of assurance. A hole popped through the top of the leathery shell seconds later, the tiny tip of a horn bud poking its way to freedom. The cyberdog let out a yelp loud enough to cause the Courier to finally turn around, her eyes widening.

"What is going on? Ohmygosh!"

She dashed back toward them, just as the sides of the shell quivered and a perfect, blunted muzzle hesitantly sniffed at the wide world offered above. Then it pushed, mouth opening, and a small, wet bundle of soft, creamy scales and pinprick-sharp claws flopped out onto the sand, squalling as if the universe had just dealt it a markedly cruel blow. (Which it probably had, judging by the looks on the faces of those watching it.) It was about the size of a newborn bighorner or brahmin, the Courier thought, little more than thirty pounds though most of that was more ugly-cute than any cow's calf.

"That is the most awf-," Arcade started.

"Adorable," Lily managed.

"Cute," the Courier added.

Rex snuffled at the thing, his head sinking lower and then bobbing about as he tried to get a better view of it. The newborn deathclaw stopped crying and looked up at him, then made low, contented cheeping noises as Rex's warm, wet nose started to sniff at its body before his tongue began hesitantly licking at its shoulders. The deathclaw crawled shakily to its haunches, balancing there, glancing about with inquisitive, milky eyes and then started to rub his face against Rex's cheek and sniffed back, clearly thinking this was exactly what he should do. Rex wagged his tail and looked up at the rest of the group.

"Well it's not exactly a deathclaw anymore," Friday laughed, "I'm pretty sure it thinks it's a dog."

"Great," Arcade sighed, "just what we need, someone else who is confused about reality."

"Isn't that precious!" Lily balled her hands together by her face, if possible looking like the happiest nightkin in the universe. "Even Leo thinks it's cute. Reminds me of baby Becky, back at the Vault! Just like it was yesterday!"

ED-E zoomed closer and the baby snapped playfully at it, causing the eyebot to beep enthusiastically and bob around the infant's open mouth. The Courier took a step forward, turning her head from side to side and then finally looked over at Arcade.

"Is it a male or a female," she asked hesitantly.

"How am I supposed to know," Arcade snapped. "I'm a doctor, not a veterinarian."

"I was only asking because I wanted to know if it needs a boy name or a girl name," she said, scowling at him.

"You..." Arcade looked down at the little abomination, then back at her, his face twisting into something that was a cross between confusion and disbelief. "You aren't- No. Just, just not happening. Do I have to list the reasons why this is a bad tactical ploy, or can you just infer that for once from the sound of my voice?"

"What do you want me to do, throw it into the sagebrush for the radscorpions?"

"The thought had crossed my mind," he stammered.

"Not our new baby." Lily picked up the tiny bundle of claws and fangs and it made a peeping noise, somewhere between that of a baby bird and a kitten before nuzzling into the crook of the nightkin's inner elbow. "We have to take care of the little boy, Jimmy."

She looked pleadingly over at the Courier, who still wasn't sure why the giant super mutant called her by a man's name. _Did she look like a boy? She was wearing a dress._ Friday shook her head. _And how does she know that it's male?_

"Listen," the Courier said, and Rex obediently sat and looked up at her. "It's _little_, as in, well, mostly harmless. We could use this to our advantage in the Mojave. Wouldn't it be, I dunno, really, kinda, AMAZING to have a pet deathclaw? We'd be, like, the most bad mothers this side of Vegas!"

"We'd also be the most _dead _'mothers' this side of Vegas," Arcade countered. "Do I really need to list the reasons why this will turn out horribly, horribly badly for us?"

Lily held the deathclaw out in front of her, cooing at it as if it were a newborn human baby. Friday probably would have laughed at the sight if she wasn't already in such a bad mood from losing her omelet opportunity.

"Well." Friday finally held up her hands. "Give it a week. If the thing is climbing the curtains in the Lucky 38 and Mr. House is sending laser guided missiles at us across the whole Mojave because it peed on his core processor, then we'll talk."

"A week." Arcade rolled his eyes. "Why am I not surprised by this? Oh, I know, because it's _you _I'm talking to."

"Well," she said, smiling up at him, "I'll let you name it."

He looked over at Lily, who had currently caught a live lizard and was trying to feed the squirming bundle of scales to the baby's waiting maw.

"How about we don't? Names have a way of making people keep things. And since you named your cowboy repeater, and now won't let it out of your sight, I think you're more prone than most to this clause."

"NAME IT."

"Mother of- Dammit, just name it something stupid, like Fluffy or Mr. Cuddlesworth, or the Gigantic-Half-Ton-Monstrosity, which is what it'll be in less than six months."

"Fluffy works." The Courier spun around. "Lily, say hello to baby Fluffy the deathclaw. This is gonna be shiny!"

.o.O.o.

"Veronica," Friday called into the hallway, "what do you call a baby deathclaw?"

"Huh?"

The former scribe peered around the open door to the bathroom, followed by the inquisitive face of Cass, peeking over her own.

"A baby deathclaw," the Courier continued, "is it a calf? Pup? Kit? Cria?"

"How should I know." Veronica rolled her eyes. "We're doing our nails though, if you wanna join us."

"Holy shit," Cass said, slipping around her into the hallway, her mind jumping ahead to the obvious, "did you do what I think you did?"

Rex stepped forward, the tiny deathclaw hooked onto his back by the fur running across his shoulders.

"That is amazing," Veronica said, stepping into the hallway herself, "and now we're all going to die, right?"

Fluffy quickly decided that, though Lily was his mother, Arcade was a close second and Rex was his unofficial mentor in the zen of being a good dog. He helped Lily slice various meats for dinner sometimes with his rapidly growing claws, but mostly he followed the cyberdog around and learned how to pee on people's legs while the Courier was trying to talk to them. When Rex did this, people generally kicked at him. But when a thirty-pound deathclaw attempted it, many people just tried to pretend nothing had happened. This finally got a chuckle out of Boone when Fluffy did it to President Kimball, and also a comment that the thing really needed some obedience training.

Friday gave this some thought. Veronica had convinced Fluffy not to chew on the pool table and also to nudge someone with his head (softly!) when he had to go outside, both good things, and most of the people he had mauled/tried to play with were chem Fiends anyway. _But manners? For a deathclaw?_

Craig finally planted a flyer in front of her one afternoon. "The Kings are hosting a puppy training class in Freeside. You're going."

The Courier found Fluffy behind H&H Tools the day of the class, gnawing on a derelict Securitron. He had already dug an eight foot hole, and was attempting to force bits of the robot into this. Upon seeing Friday however, he forgot all about that plan and dashed up to her, smothering her face with saliva-soaked puppy kisses.

"Aww, my baby," she said, laughing, pulling the beast down by the spiked collar Veronica had bought him. "I luv you so much! We're gonna have a really, really, REALLY great day to-day! Aren't we, Fluffy-fluff?"

The deathclaw looked suitably impressed, even if he had no idea what was going on.

"And then…and then! I'm giving you a b-a-t-h!"

Fluffy must be getting smarter, she concluded later, because he shot off like a rocket after she finished spelling and didn't come back until after dinner that night, which fortunately for Friday was right around the time the puppy class started. Unfortunately for everyone else in the class, however, Fluffy had found a very dead cazador hours before that needed a good rolling, and there was no time to give him a bath.

The King himself was teaching the session, but he didn't ask any questions (there were three kids with mole rats in the class anyway), and so two months later the Courier dashed into the Lucky 38 suite with Fluffy on a leash and a certificate of completion under her arm. She showed the crumpled thing to Boone, who she thought was going to asphyxiate himself from laughing so hard.

"Well now that he's got good manners," Friday said, "I should take him to The Fort to meet Caesar, he'd like that."

Craig looked up at her, looked over at Fluffy again, and then went back to dying of laughter.

"That's a five-star plan," Cass added as she sauntered into the game room. "About damn time we visited that place again, and with a deathclaw."

"Wanna come with me Cass," the Courier asked, "Fluffy listens pretty good to you too."

"Hell ya!" She smiled. "There's a lotta really nice ass that side of the river! When do we leave?"

Caesar's gatekeepers took Friday and Cass's weapons and contraband, but just sort-of stared at Fluffy before letting them through. The Courier had never given them any reason to think she was hostile, but a seven-foot deathclaw will make anyone hesitate, especially one with a lolling tongue that actually comes when you call it.

Cass stayed outside of the tent with Fluffy while Friday made her way inside, and things went well for about ten minutes. Then Cass noticed that one of the guards was eyeing her, and she unclasped her shirt another button and completely forgot about the deathclaw snuffling around her feet.

Fluffy had an excellent radar for knowing when he could get away with something and he glanced up at Cass only once before loping down the hill. The two young Legionaries in training that were climbing the stairs proved too frightened to play with him and so, feeling bored, he wandered listlessly through the camp until he spotted an interesting looking man playing ball with a dog. Talking to him was another man who appeared to be wearing a dog's head over the top of his own and since Fluffy understood very little aside from Rex's lessons of 'you are also a dog', this seemed the proper place for him to go. Feeling as if he had accomplished something great, Fluffy wagged his tail and bounded toward the little group.

.o.O.o.

Cass was unhasping her bra beneath the guard's urgent fingers when she heard a strangled scream echo through the camp. She looked up from their shelter in the shade behind the tent, hesitating for a moment. Then the guard slipped a hand into her pants, and she realized she just didn't care.

"My Lord!" Vulpes Inculta cried, his normal cool composure shattered as he darted into Caesar's tent, his coyote headdress askew. "A mighty beast has mauled Antony and is attempting to take his head! I, I made a move to subdue the…abomination, but it lunged for me and I could not-"

"Vulpes." Caesar leaned forward in his throne. "What is it you're going on about now?"

At that moment, Fluffy burst through the tent flap, his muzzle covered in blood and trotted toward the Courier, dropping a spit-soaked head at her feet. Then, he sat down on his haunches and made a happy noise somewhere between a screech and a bark, before attempting to nuzzle her.

Friday looked up at Caesar, Caesar looked back at her, and Vulpes attempted to catch his breath, leaning against one of the tent poles. Then Friday looked around at the guards stationed by Caesar's throne, and her face got very pale.

"That is the head," Caesar said, "of my best Houndmaster."

"Um," Friday said, "I'm sorry?"

Somehow Cass managed to meet the Courier at the gate of The Fort, and the two guards stationed there did not even try to stop them when Fluffy growled in warning. Weapons and contraband reinstated, they then found that deathclaws were not such bad swimmers after all, before emerging on the other side of the Colorado, soaked but alive.

"You know," Cass said, "I don't give two shits about what you do over there, but me and that guard were just getting-"

"Oh shut up," Friday said, wringing out the hem of her dress. "I'll give you some caps to go visit FISTO again, it's not my fault Fluffy ate a person."

"No," Cass continued, "it actually is. Arcade and I and even Raul warned you about this! That's a fuckin' deathclaw, Friday! It's not a pet mole rat, it's going to only get bigger, and it has twelve inch claws! Have you seen what those claws can do to someone? And what about when it starts missing, I dunno, the deathclaw version of pussy? That thing humps your leg, you'd probably die."

Friday looked over at Fluffy, who was lying in the dirt watching her, looking pitiful. He whimpered at her, then crawled forward in the dust, wriggling his head along the ground.

"Okay," she sighed, looking defeated, "okay. Um, I see your point. I'll uh, I'll uh find him somewhere else to live. Somewhere-"

She turned around and started back toward Camp Forlorn Hope, her face turned so Cass could not see the tears that were already starting to fall.

Arcade eventually helped her find Fluffy a good place to be, with a pack of deathclaws in a location affectionately dubbed 'Deathclaw Promontory'. It was difficult to watch, as the alpha male squashed Fluffy flat and proceeded to show him who was dominant, but Fluffy was still young enough that after the initiation, the alpha female took to nuzzling him like one of her own.

"Do you think he'll be okay," Friday asked as they snuck cautiously away from the new family.

Arcade gave her a reassuring smile. "Oh? He's a deathclaw, Friday. How many unhappy deathclaws have you ever seen? Or dead ones that you didn't kill, for that matter?"

The Courier considered this, decided that the number was acceptably low, and then nodded.

"You're right," she said, "but I'll miss him. Fluffy was the best deathclaw ever."

.o.O.o.

Legate Lanius, the Monster of the East, now the Scourge of the West, stood over the erstwhile Courier known as Friday. He pressed his boot further into her stomach as she tried desperately to reach for her lost combat knife only inches from her fingers.

"So it would seem, girl who delivers mail, that your Republic threats were all hollow lies. Look at your dam." And at this he gestured up to the fighting before them. "Caesar's Legion is winning! Your companions have retreated! And now it is only you and I, as it should be."

He raised his blade, ready to plunge it into her throat, and then hesitated. Friday had not expected him to do anything of the sort, and so she tilted her head, equally shocked, and looked in front of them.

A blurred, dark, screaming shape leapt upon the Legate, and he brought up his sword but not before the arm holding it was ripped from the socket. The Courier sat up, gazing on in shock as a deathclaw alpha male disemboweled Lanius, cutting through his bronze armor as if it were butter. Behind her, more howls of pain echoed through the Legion ranks, and Friday turned her head in time to see two soldiers run past them and back toward camp, screaming louder when they saw the alpha male perched atop their commanding officer's corpse.

The deathclaw snuffled at the Legate's body, then turned toward the Courier. She froze, unsure if this was luck or just death catching up with her. Instead, the deathclaw whimpered, dropped to the ground at her feet, and wriggled toward her embarrassingly.

"Fluffy," the Courier managed, her whole body going cold and then warm all at once.

The alpha male made a chortling sound in his throat, like a contented parrot and rubbed his head against the front of her Ranger combat armor.

"And you brought your family," Friday said, looking over her shoulder in relief as an entire Legion squad and their Veteran Decanus threw themselves from the side of the dam, avoiding the swipes of four juvenile deathclaws and an enraged alpha female. "There must be…I dunno, twenty or more of you guys? You brought your whole family, didn't you? And look at yourself! All fwuffy and handsome! Oh I've missed you so much, you stupid deathclaw."

Fluffy continued to rub up against her, practically lifting her off the ground with his massive head.

"Well," she said with a smile, "wanna go see Lily, boy? She's missed you terrible."

The deathclaw backed up and stood, looking delighted at the mention of his foster-mother's name. To anyone but the Courier, this would have caused instant panic, but she only smiled wider. Friday patted him affectionately on the shoulder and then they walked off the dam together, with the somehow-fitting cries of death and destruction echoing all around them like a victory anthem.

_And here, it is told, The Ballad of Fluffy the Deathclaw reaches its end. For many, it is not known what occurred after 'That Damn Deathclaw Dam Disaster', as Legate Vulpes Inculta so vocally tells his troops, nor is it recorded how many Republic men and women were indiscriminately chomped in the heat of the fray. ("It's war after all," Oliver told his remaining officers. "Did you expect gift baskets?") But to those few who hear the fable, to those few that make it all the way to the NCR capitol of Shady Sands, there is something that always gives them pause._

_In the square next to the Vault Dweller statue, there is another. It is carved of rock pulled directly from the granite on which Caesar's tent once sat, and chipped into the likeness of a twelve-foot alpha male deathclaw, sitting on his haunches next to the much smaller chiseled form of a cybernetic dog. It's said by many Veteran Rangers there are deathclaw bones buried beneath, though nobody has bothered to check, partially out of respect and more often disbelief._

_But for those who venture close enough, there is also a tiny bronze plaque embedded at the base, a plaque with only five words._

_'He was a good boy.'_

_And though it is only a sentence, it is enough._

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(Thanks: Thank you to Bishie Huntress for reading this and telling me it was actually funny (because you can't always tell), for working over some editorial issues that really needed to be cleared up, and generally being supportive at two in the morning when we probably should have been in bed. Any further mistakes are my own. Hope you enjoyed it, please let me know if you did!)


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